Dear Anthony P.

Dear Anthony P.,

Today you depart on your 6 month trek by bike through Nepal and India. I am jealous. Not so much of your destination but your tenacity. Not so much your tenacity as your adventurous spirit. Not so much your adventurous spirit, per say–but of your former salary. Not so much your former salary or the way you slaved and saved, but of the fact that that you make plans and see them through.

God bless you, Anthony P.

I was once like you, making plans and seeing them through, but in such restricted manners. For instance, I was assigned homework assignments in the third grade. I brought them home and completed them. It felt good. Life was good. I was a latch-key kid. I started to slowly sense that instead of doing my homework I could instead invade the cookie jar. It was all down hill from there. Too much freedom!

But you, Anthony P., are an older, wiser man than I by at least five months. And how long did this trip take to plan? Did it take a full year of planning, scrimping and saving, arrangements with the other riders and such?

Hmmm, a full year, and you're already five months ahead of me. That means, if my math is correct, I should get back to whatever I was planning out seven months ago, and allow for the next five months as the culmination of those plans.

Fuzzy, this math.

I believe it was grad school. Man, I need to get me to grad school and get learned on writing, teaching, something. Ah, the heart is willing. The flesh? Needs companionship.

When you are in Nepal, keep moving. When you are in India, send me soil samples for my home eco-lab-tester. I want to test for nitrates.

Anthony P., you go get them! And by "them" I mean life and all its offerings while on the road. I'll miss you, my friend. But then again, I've only seen you once in the last three months. That happens though. There are planned and unplanned sabbaticals.

I'm glad we could hang before you hit the 6 month road, and that you gave me the locket with a picture of Bill Withers to encourage my singing. Why Bill Withers, though?

Anthony P. in the words of the character from Zoolander, "Do it."